I just cleaned out the little freezer of our refrigerator and found food I didn’t know I had! I threw out some food that had been forgotten and organized the freezer to make more sense! I have been organizing and trying to streamline our food prep. system. This really means that we have been making food ahead of time like I did about 6 weeks ago. Today so far we have made granola, freezer biscuits (see recipe below) Pizza crusts, pre-made the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then also Ham and Cheese sandwiches and corn bread mix!Â Did you know that if you spread peanut butter on both slices of sandwich bread it keeps the bread from getting soggy after you add the jelly. So the sandwich would look like this Â bread, PB, jelly, PB, and then topped off with the top slice of bread. We also did this with the ham and cheese sandwiches but a little different. Put the mayo or mustard in between the ham and the cheese and not right up next to the bread. There are enough for the week double bagged and in the freezer. Since Â we home school we don’t need to have sandwiches everyday. The one day we do need to pack a lunch we leave early and get home late. I am trying to reduce the stress on that day. I will let you know if it works. :0)

Punch down, roll 1/2 inch thick. Cut with biscuit cutter. Place on a cookie sheet, then freeze. After frozen place in freezer bag until ready to serve. To prepare place unthawed on cookie sheet in cold oven. Bake 400 degrees until brown, 25-30 minutes.

We will be pre-prepping the dinners when the other crew gets in from the grocery store. Â I am a bitÂ moreÂ ambitious this time as I am adding some family favorites to the recipe list and increasing the number of meals to 25 main dishes, 15 lunches and ten Â breakfast items. So far I think our grocery budget is about $257 spent. They shopped at Aldi’s first and then the Dollar Store. I had subdivided the grocery list into different stores as Â Aldi’s is cheapest and the Â Dollar store has the cheaper Mexican food items. The last store on the list has the best produce and meat so the big bucks will come from there. This list is also a bit inflated since we Â needed to replenish the pantry. These meals should last the month which would be a great blessing to all of us since it promises to be a busy one.

Dinners

Chicken Parmesan rolls

South of the Border Lasange

Pasta sausage and peppers

Slow cooker Pork Chops

Orange Rosemary baked chicken

Beef Potato Casserole

Stuffed Shells

Pasta primavera or pasta salad

Slow cooker Chicken chili

Chicken Broccoli Stir fry

Rio GrandeÂ Lasagna

Slow cooker pork chop dinner

Chicken and rice soup

Crock pot spaghetti

Chicken and Macaroni

Chipped beef on Toast or rice

Tuna Casserole w/ potato chips

Tuna Crockets or we also call them Tuna patties

Honey chicken/asparagus stir fry

Spinach rice and cheese + burger patties

Crock potÂ BBQÂ pulled pork sandwiches

Chicken patty sandwiches

quiche with bacon

Beans and cornbread

cheesy potato soup

Most of the dinner recipes are from the saving dinner website. I am adjusting most of them for freezer meals. I am also including in the shopping list the other meals that we will eat that are not freezer meals. We just needed a plan for dinner, lunch and breakfast. I am not satisfied that we are eating as healthy as we should. The names of the recipes are what the kids Â call them so they are family food. I am also not a nutritionist so these meals are probably not balanced in some way.

Lunches

burritos

tomato soup and toasted cheese

tuna salad with lettuce and tomatos

tomato and swiss cheese with alfalfa sprouts

left over soup

pita bread sandwiches

chips and cheese

apples and peanut butter

banana peanut butter sandwiches

BLTâ€™s

Homemade pizza

macaroni and cheese

Broccoli salad with raisins

ham and cheese bagels

baked potatoes

left over bean soup

Breakfasts

oatmeal

bagels

cereal

granola

yogurt and granola

Peanut butter and apples

peanut butter and Bananas

cream of wheat

pancakes

instant oatmeal

Sausage biscuits

Freezer biscuits

muffins

oven French toast

Frozen waffles

eggs

Well, I will write more later and include photographs of our dinners in process. The other thing to understand is that we will round out these dinners with vegetables, salads, side dishes and possibly, sometimes dessert!